


the tide drags

by hellbeast



Series: this is where we hope it gets better [1]
Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, self-indulgent writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:18:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellbeast/pseuds/hellbeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roque starts to slip, but Cougar’s not letting him go down without a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the tide drags

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes I watch The Losers when I'm feeling sad and to be honest, it only makes me sadder. Self-indulgent quasi-fix-it fic because I am, at best, indifferent to the way Roque is generally written.

When Cougar joins the Losers, he learns that there are already little groups hierarchies already in place.

He finds that while Pooch and Jensen had known each other longer and gone through basic together, Jensen had actually worked more with Roque before joining up. He learns that the team started off with just Roque and Clay, then Pooch and then Jensen, after higher ranked missions had required various modes of transport and actual intel. He learns that before him, Roque and Pooch would flip coins for who would snipe. He hears horror stories and good natured ribbing about who has the worst driving (Clay has no regard for the vehicles, but Roque drives like the adrenaline junkie he is) and who has the shittiest aim (Jensen does better with blunt objects than with guns). He learns that every Loser’s role orbits, surprisingly enough, around their interactions with Roque, not Clay.

Over time, Cougar realizes that as ill-tempered as Roque seems, he genuinely cares about all of them, his team. So when Pooch starts to frown and finger at his ring, or when Jensen starts repeating the same diatribe over and over like a mantra, or whenever Cougar’s nerves are too amped up for him to recognize movement as anything other than _threatthreathreat_ , it’s Roque, not Clay, who does something about it. Roque who breaks out the good, hard liquor; Roque who puts a huge palm on Jensen’s nape and starts whispering words of comfort until their CTO finds his way back; Roque who moves slowly and harmlessly towards Cougar, for hours at a time, smooth Spanish syllables slipping from his lips.

It’s not like their CO doesn’t care, it’s more like Clay trusts Roque to fix the things that are broken, because he trusts that Roque best knows how.

The thing that takes Cougar the longest to work out is that while Roque loves Clay – really and truly loves, the kind of love they write tragedies about – he mostly hates him, too.

* * *

Bolivia is a fucking nightmare that doesn’t fucking end.

* * *

Cougar is the first to notice.

It’s something that he’s good at, noticing, because he’s quiet and attentive, and most of the time his teammates forget that he’s there. And so Cougar watches and learns and waits.

Bolivia, after, isn’t a _complete_ clusterfuck. They all know at least enough Spanish to get by, even if Clay’s accent is so bad that Cougar almost takes it as a personal offense. They drink and curse and start bar fights and, for the first three weeks, they make plans for getting back stateside and putting a bullet in Max’s fucking skull.

Only two months later, they’re still there.

And every time Clay brings up Max, with that determined fervor in his eyes, Roque looks more and more like a man drowning.

* * *

Pooch is the first to say something.

They’ve been in Bolivia for nearly three months, and even though it turns the Pooch’s stomach just thinking about it, he knows that if they stayed here, it wouldn’t be _that_ bad.

Every week the team hits up a bar and drinks their meager paychecks away. Roque plays darts with some of the locals, while Cougar and Jensen charm their way around to make sure no one’s been looking for them. Pooch manages to get drunk as hell while also making sure they don’t drink more than they can afford. Only Clay ever brings up Max anymore, and after a while, even that stops.

But Pooch always finds his eyes sliding over to Roque, who starts talking less and less until he’s starting to make Cougar look chatty. Their XO doesn’t act any differently – he still cleans weapons with Cougar, still pours Pooch shots practically every night, still pushes Jensen around like a particularly fond older brother, still calls Clay out on his bullshit – but he is different. There's something there that hadn't been before, something dark and quiet and seeing it in the darks of Roque's eyes makes Pooch worry.

“The fuck does that mean,” Roque doesn’t-ask when Pooch brings it up two nights later, “I’m different because I’m the same?”

“The Pooch is just saying,” Pooch shrugs, “If something’s up man, you can say. We’re still a team.”

Something about what Pooch says makes Roque frown, but he doesn’t tell Pooch to drop it or fuck off, so Pooch considers it a win.

* * *

Jensen is the first to do something.

He, Cougar and Pooch talk – how can they not, while their CO is entertaining delusions of vengeance and their XO looks closer to genocide with each passing day? – and they, in so many words, decide that Roque needs to be tag-teamed.

“This is stupid,” Pooch says for the fifth time, but Jensen knows he’ll go through with the plan because they’re all worried about Roque.

“It’s a great plan,” Jensen defends, “It’s an amazing plan, and everyone but you knows it, Pooch. Even Cougs is diggin’ the plan, right Cougs?”

“Peligroso,” Cougar frowns, and then adds before Pooch gets smug, “but necessary.”

Jensen still thinks it’s a great plan. Roque is as likely to agree to talk about his feelings as Cougar is to eat his hat. But something is _clearly_ bugging the shit out of their XO, and since Clay sure as hell isn’t going to do anything about it, Jensen figures if one of them is always with Roque at all times, something will eventually give.

The only downside is that Roque is a violent, nasty motherfucker on a good day. And these last three and half months have not been good days.

Still, Jensen guesstimates that there’s only a 60% chance that Roque will actually kill one of them. Probably.

* * *

The thing is, Jensen’s plan works.

Cougar sits closer to Roque when they clean weapons together, and after a few days, they engage in easy conversation, jumping languages every time Roque is trying to be avoidant (he forgets, though, that although Cougar doesn’t speak much, he _is_ just as language-proficient as Roque himself).

When Roque shoves at Jensen, Jensen starts to shove back, talking good natured shit, and soon he and Roque are wrestling, grappling at each other and cajoling each other. Roque laughs in his dangerous way and Jensen learns how to take hits. If they were actually fighting, Jensen would be dead many times over, but they’re not, and Roque even lets Jensen pin him once or twice.

Most nights, after Clay’s drunken himself into a stupor, Pooch and Roque sit and talk quietly, emptying bottles between them. Although Jensen and Cougar aren’t sleeping – none of them sleep much, not in this paradoxical Bolivia After – neither of them joins in. Roque drunk is hardly any different from Roque sober, except that a drunken Roque is that much more unpredictable. Pooch teaches Roque how to mix drinks. Roque teaches Pooch how to detect dissolved poisons.

After a few weeks of them crowding Roque without outright following him everywhere, their XO starts to talk.

Roque tells Cougar about his knives and his life before black-ops ( _before Clay_ goes implied but unsaid), he tells Jensen about his childhood, never giving details, and he tells Pooch about his family, but only the good things.

The problem isn’t Jensen’s plan.

The problem is Aisha.

* * *

When Clay comes back to the warehouse with a singed blazer, cuts all over his hands and a black eye, reeking of alcohol and sex, none of them say anything.

When Clay tells them about Aisha, and her offer, none of them say anything of substance. Jensen thinks Aisha sounds like Clay might’ve been wishing too hard, Pooch is skeptical but willingly admits that there are no other leads, and Cougar just hums. Roque doesn’t say anything, just stares hard at Clay, twirling a stiletto between his fingers.

Clay takes it as acquiesce.

When Clay leaves, Roque takes down an entire wall with his fists.

* * *

After the fuck-up with the flash drive, after Roque doesn’t kill Aisha for some fucking reason (because _Clay_ told him not to), Roque goes to a bar. Actually, they all go to the bar, but after Clay slips away – a lot less subtly than he thinks – Roque starts ordering vodka tonics and glaring a hole into the bar.

He waves them all away – Jensen’s chatter and Pooch’s raised eyebrows and Cougar’s careful look – and they go, because Roque’s a grown man who can look after himself.

They go spring Roque from the brig later that night, finding him in something like good humour, with a black eye and wide berth from the other prisoners. No one asks, but that night, Roque crawls into Cougar’s bunk and curls up at the foot, muttering something like, “ _fucking_ Clay.”

Only later, days later, the five of them are actually in one place, together. Clay’s in for a few round of cards and the tension in Roque’s shoulders is significantly lessened and everyone else is happier for it. Clay and Roque rarely, if ever, come to blows, but the tension between them for the past couple of days had been wearing everyone thin (and it generally goes unspoken that Roque could kill Clay before Clay knew what was happening).

(it goes even more unspoken that Roque would sooner not fight than actually kill Clay).

Aisha walks in.

No one stops playing or looks up, although Jensen calls out a greeting, to which the rest of them grunt in agreement to. Roque looks as though he’s seriously contemplating setting down his hand to get a grip on his KA-BAR.

But then Aisha walks out, and Clay doesn’t say anything and Roque lets his eyes drop back down to his hand. Jensen, Cougar and Pooch try to be subtle in their relief.

“Hit me,” Roque says, and Cougar – Cougar is always the dealer, even though Roque says that Cougar is the _cheatingest motherfucker_ he’s ever met – slides him a card, face down.

Pooch takes a hit, Cougar takes one, Jensen doesn’t and Clay folds. By the time Clay makes some bullshit excuse and then walks off, Roque’s got his full black out, handling the blade with his left hand. He seems to be ignoring the blood.

“Blackjack,” he snarls, slapping a bloodied palm onto his discarded hand before stalking away.

* * *

After that, it’s become a thing, Clay slinking away after Aisha and Roque breaking the tense silences of his own creation with unrelated anecdotes.

It means something, Cougar’s sure of it, but he’s not quite sure yet.

* * *

“I keep dogs, over east,” is Roque’s story of the night. He’s running his fingers over his decidedly non-regulation Gerber LHR, and he’s not looking at any of them.

It’s worrying.

“I rescue ‘em, actually. Bunch ’a big mutts from death row, got my own little pack. Biggest fucking sweethearts I ever met, and some bastards wanted to put ‘em down for lookin’ scary. They couldn’t hurt anybody if they tried, but nobody even likes to get close to ‘em, except me,” Roque sets down his knife and picks up a shot glass. It’s only a step up from moonshine and Jensen knows that it has to taste like shit, but Roque downs it smoothly.

“Clay said he figures they’re not so different from me,” Roque muses, peering down the shot glass, as though he’s forgotten that he has an audience. Cougar, who has been watching the line of Roque’s back the entire time, knows better. The words pull the corners of the sniper’s mouth down further, and he exchanges two brief looks of anger with his squad.

“If I die for Cl- If I die at all,” Roque amends, and they all pretend for a moment that Roque’s death will in no way involve their willfully obtuse CO, “You gotta feed ‘em for me, alright?"

"Those dumb motherfuckers don’t even know how to hunt anymore – got it beat out of ‘em by some asshole who wanted to win dogfights. Don’t forget, okay?" Roque puts fingers on the back of Jensen’s neck and pulls the younger man close, his words getting softer but more enunciated; more urgent.

“Yeah,” Jensen swallows, licking his lips and gripping Roque’s forearm to hold the larger man steady, “Yeah, man, I got you. Don’t worry, I got you.”

Roque manages to stalk towards the corner twenty minutes later, coordinated in the way that no drunk man should be, although Jensen does help him avoid all the blades stashed in his bunk.

Pooch is smiling in that way he does when he wants to scream or maybe shoot something. Cougar and Jensen can relate.

* * *

(“I’m telling you,” Roque whispers to Cougar’s back in the dead of night, “So that there’s nothing left in the end. You’ll know who I was and you’ll have me with you and it won’t be me dying. It’ll be someone else, something angry and dangerous that needed to be put down.”

"When you put me down, it won't be me," Roque's voice is urgent and low, "So you won't have to cry. You won't have to care. You can just move on. And you have to, all of you dumbasses. Move _on_."

There’s the shifting of cloth as Roque curls up at the foot of Cougar’s bed again, the purpose of his words still hanging there in the air.

Cougar clenches his fist and says nothing.)

* * *

“Wade found me, at the bar,” Roque tells Cougar plainly. He ignores the sharp inhale from the sniper, “Wants me to go turncoat. Might say yes-”

Cougar hisses low between his teeth. Roque keeps talking.

“-Just to get that fucker in the spine,” For emphasis, Roque pulls his KA-BAR and his LHR and mimes severing a vertebrae in two separate places. He exhales like he can feel the splatter of blood, like he can taste the kill.

Cougar clenches his tongue between his teeth and tightens his jaw.

“I would bring you back,” he says slowly, after a moment.

Roque blinks, and places his LHR down on the table. The force of it makes the blade spin lazily across the table, until the handle brushes Cougar's arm.

“You sayin’ I should play turncoat?”

Cougar, silent, watchful Cougar, tilts his head. Maybe.

Roque rolls his shoulders forward, leaning until he can catch Cougar’s gaze from under the brim of his hat.

“I might not come back from that, Cougs,” Roque mumbles, but his eyes are bright with the purpose they’ve been lacking for the past six months and Cougar knows he can’t take it back, not now.

“I will bring you back,” Cougar says stubbornly, picking up the LHR and handing it back, handle first, "Lo prometo."

* * *

“They will not forgive us for this, not for a long while,” Cougar reminds Roque, before they head out. Jensen is in a pained sleep behind them and Pooch is outside, smoking as he so rarely does.

They’re not sure where Clay is, or rather, they aren’t thinking too hard about it.

Cougar hopes that Aisha is bleeding out somewhere.

Roque only smiles in that way that he does, more teeth and fury than happiness.

“I don’t need to be forgiven to end this.”

* * *

 _I’m bringing you back_ , Cougar thinks as he draws Roque and Wade and the plane into his sights. From the ground, between Wade’s fury and Roque’s determination, Clay calls in the shot.

Cougar can see Roque through the plane’s windshield.

 _End it_ , his XO commands. Cougar reads the stretch of the e and bite of the t on Roque’s lips, and imagines the sound in his mind.

End it.

Cougar holds steady, and lights a fire under Wade’s ass.

Cougar pulls the trigger and watches it end.


End file.
